The Darkest Ocean
by GyoverlyHills
Summary: 500 years after the manga, piracy has moved into space. The announcement of a planet's worth of hidden treasure causes another pirate age. Can pilot Mark Wagner leave the marines and become the pirate king?
1. Informal Resignation

Disclaimer: One Piece belongs to Eiichiro Oda. All non-canon Devil's Fruits belong to their respective creators.

Author's note: I don't have a beta reader and I know this fic needs one. PM me if you want to beta a different kind of one piece story.

Lt. Mark Wagner hated his job. For ten years he had been serving as a fighter pilot aboard the _Loguetown_, an outdated Marine destroyer. Though many civilians wished they could be fighter pilots, Mark was disappointed; the missions he flew were never exciting. When he wasn't flying long, boring patrols, he was fighting small-name pirates, whose ships the marines outnumbered three to one. He knew that no matter what he did, whether he destroyed four enemy fighters or was unceremoniously shot down himself, the Marines would arrest the pirates. He was equally disappointed with his career as a whole; hell, he still hadn't made it past lieutenant and he was in his thirties. That was why his brain went into overdrive the day he learned that the _Loguetown's_ infantry had captured a devil's fruit.

Three days ago, Mark had helped the _Loguetown_ capture a pirate freighter. The freighter had surrendered to the marines without Mark having to fire a shot. The ragtag crew of eleven was thrown in the brig. By the time he landed, word had already spread that the pirate ship had been carrying a devil's fruit, which the _Loguetown's_ Captain, Robert Grist, locked in a safe in the destroyer's cargo hold.

Now Mark had decided to steal the fruit and become a pirate. The last Pirate King had claimed to have a planet's worth of treasure hidden somewhere in the galaxy and Mark wanted to find it. Even if he failed, he would be in the middle of the second age of pirates, as opposed to helping the marines catch stragglers a five-year-old could arrest.

Mark's plan was to open the safe, pocket the fruit, and escape in a Marine fighter. His first task would be to order the hangar crew to prepare a fighter for him. By the time he had finished with the theft the fighter would be ready. Then he would have to get past the marine guarding the cargo hold. The hardest part was the safe. Only the captain, who had standing orders to make sure all devil's fruits reached Marine HQ, knew the code. Fortunately, he was an idiot, so the code to the safe would probably be something predictable. Then he would simply walk out, go get in his fighter, and be halfway to the next star system by the time the captain found out. Still, he felt nervous because he had never broken the law before. Many members of his family were marines and he had been brought up to follow in their footsteps. They would likely disown him if they learned what he planned to do. But when would there be another opportunity like this?

Getting the fighter fueled up wasn't difficult. Captain Grist had always ordered his crew not go above or beyond his orders. The crew, assuming Mark had explicit orders to go flying without the rest of his squadron, began fueling and arming fighter Delta-1549 for him, no questions asked.

Mark reached the entrance to the cargo hold without any interruptions. There was nothing interesting about a man with blond hair cut to regulation length and the same blueish-gray flight suit as all of the other marine pilots. Mark knew firsthand that the marine on guard duty had had too much to drink the night before; he had watched the man down enough beer to knock out a room full of recruits. The guard was probably still hung-over; he looked miserable and gave Mark a rather sloppy salute. Like most of the crew, he was probably too demoralized to suspect another marine anyway.

Mark returned the salute and walked to the safe at the back of the cargo hold. He knew that if he couldn't guess the password, he could always open the safe with a hand grenade. However, he didn't want the noise to attract attention from the crew; he didn't know if this fruit would make him bullet-proof. Much to his relief, however, he was easily able to open the safe. The password was the captain's name! Relieved, he put the fruit in his pocket. He would have time to eat it after he took off. When he reached the hangar, a crew chief wearing sergeant's chevrons saluted him and reported, "Delta-1549 fueled and ready for take off sir!" Mark returned the salute and headed for the fighter. Delta-1549 was a V-30 Cutlass, the most common star-fighter in the Marines. It was a multi-role fighter, designed to be capable of both intercepting enemy fighters and bombing larger ships. It resembled a jet fighter and was painted in the blue and white livery the Marines had used for over 500 years. Mark entered the cockpit and nervously performed the pre-flight check, hoping no one would find out what he had stolen. After his fighter's engines roared to life, It seemed to take hours for them to warm up. As soon as the 5-minute warm-up period specified in the operator's manual had passed, Mark lifted off the hangar floor and radioed for permission to leave the fighter bay. One uneventful takeoff later he was free of his old life and ready to make the jump to hyperspace.

Astronomers used to call the diminutive red star a fancy name that fit their naming conventions, but now everyone called it Haven. That was what the system was-an out-of-the-way haven for criminals. A single brown planet named Last Chance orbited the star. It was an unimportant ball of rock the Marines rarely patrolled. It was also within jumping range of Mark Wagner's stolen ship.

Last Chance appeared to be the size of Mark's fist when he entered the system from hyperspace. The planet didn't have much water; what it did have appeared to cover only a third of the side that he could see. If the data on his ship's computer was any indication, he was looking at the good side of the planet. Last Chance had no moons, rings, or other interesting features, just rocks, craters, and murky water that was probably not safe to drink. The planet did have vegetation here and there, along with a few decent-sized cities. Hopefully Mark could recruit some crew members on Last Chance. Suddenly, the telltale jerk of a tractor beam brought him back to the present. He looked up to see that a dilapidated freighter was trying to capture him. He had found more pirates than he'd bargained for.


	2. Pirates!

There was nothing remarkable about the pirate freighter. It was a boxy, ungainly ship, about the size of a pre-spaceflight cargo jet. It had clearly seen better days. As the tractor beam slowly pulled Mark toward the small hangar in the freighter's belly, he weighed his options. The tractor beam didn't appear to be very strong. He knew enough military science to recognize this by how slowly he was being pulled in. If he used his afterburners long enough he could probably escape, though doing so would damage the engines. The turret on the freighter's underside might pepper him a bit, too. However, Mark knew from experience that the crews of such freighters were usually amateurs; the more dangerous pirates usually flew larger, better-maintained freighters and sometimes even military-grade warships. In addition, during the flight his body had had time to adjust to the Devil Fruit he had eaten after he entered hyperspace. Mark decided to cut his engines and allow himself to be captured. Once he was aboard he would kick some pirate ass.

As his fighter entered the pirate ship's hangar, Mark looked around. The hangar could probably hold six fighters if it wasn't full of junk. There was one ship in the hanger, a heavy fighter with canard wings, covered with scorch marks. Mark was not familiar with the design and assumed it was a custom job. A few meters away from the scorched fighter was an area free of clutter. The tractor beam set Mark's fighter down on the empty spot and shut off. Immediately, three ragtag pirates, two men and a dark-haired woman, ran into the hangar, assault rifles in hand. They pointed their guns at the Marine fighter. "Come out with your hands up!" ordered the woman.

Mark assumed that the woman was the leader of the three pirates. She stood in front of her crewmates, and her clothes were in slightly better condition than theirs. She wore a gray jumpsuit, an engineer's tool belt around her waist, and a set of welding goggles on her brow. If Mark could beat her, he could take over the entire ship.

Mark opened the canopy of his fighter and climbed out from the cockpit onto one of the wings. He looked directly at the pirates, then jumped down to the floor and charged at them. He didn't even bother to draw his pistol. The three pirates opened fire, but their bullets merely bounced off Mark's body. Mark reached the closest of the crew members, a tall red-haired man in a tattered tracksuit. The other two pirates' eyes widened as a long metallic blade extended from Mark's arm and sliced the tracksuited man's rifle in half. Mark used the flat of his blade to hit the disarmed man in the head, knocking him to the side. "Shit! He's got a devil's fruit!" yelled the woman, "Fall back!"

Mark charged at the other crew member, an average-sized man with black hair and an oil-stained t-shirt. However, he was intercepted by the woman, who attacked him with a cutting torch. He scrambled to back away from the torch, which was slowly burning a hole in his torso, lost his balance and fell over. The woman attacked from above, trying to cut into his metal body again, but Mark rolled to the side, and the woman missed him. The dark haired man shot at Mark, but that only drew Mark's attention to the shooter. Mark charged at him, being pelted by bullets all the way, grabbed the man's rifle with one hand, and sent him flying with a single punch from the other. Mark then turned around and pointed his newly-acquired rifle at the woman, who was running towards him with the torch. She saw the gun and froze. "Put down the torch and take two steps back!" ordered Mark. The woman followed the orders. "Got a name?"

"Kate Wheeler."

"Are you the captain of this wreck?"

"Yes."

Mark lowered his gun. "Well, you're my first mate now." Kate looked skeptical. "You're a Marine. How the hell do I know you're not going to simply turn us in?"

"You're just going to have to trust me," replied Mark. Kate paused for a moment as if trying to think of a way she could still defeat Mark, but finally capitulated. "Fine, but if you turn on me or my friends I'll put a hole in your head with this torch."

"Fair enough," said Mark, "Now where's your medical supplies?"

Medicine had made quantum leaps since the previous pirate era. Broken bones could be repaired in minutes. Alien viruses could be quickly identified and cured. Lost limbs and eyes could be replaced by machinery, if not re-grown. Kate's torch had burned a hole in Mark's kidney, but a single syringe of medical fluid healed the wound. Another syringe could have removed the resulting scar, but there wasn't much of the fluid left and he wanted to save as much as possible for emergencies. Kate had no injuries, since Mark had simply dodged her and held her at gunpoint. The remaining two crew members, Axel, the tall man, and Cross, the man with the black hair, had a few broken bones each, so they needed more fluid than Mark did, but there was enough for everyone.

After the crew was healed, Kate took Mark on a tour of the freighter _Long Shot_. "This is where we all sleep," she explained as they walked through the cargo hold, "don't get excited, most of those crates are empty." "What was that fighter in the hangar?" asked Mark. "I built that myself," replied Kate,"I was going to salvage your fighter to get mine running again, but I didn't expect a devil's fruit user." The ship's two turrets, one on the belly and the other on the roof, were mismatched and of questionable structural integrity. The cockpit was as unimpressive as the rest of the ship. The pilot and co-pilot's seats were hard plastic and several of the instruments appeared to be broken; they were covered with blue tape. "As soon as we make some money, that's the first thing we're going to fix," said Mark. Kate nodded, "I hear you, captain, and now that you're here, we might actually be able to do it."

"How the hell do you travel through hyperspace with broken gauges?"

"We don't. We've been hanging around Last Chance for a week waiting for someone weak enough to rob."

After the tour, the crew met in the cargo hold to plan their first mission. "Got any other powers, Captain" asked Cross.

"Nothing you didn't see in the hangar," replied Mark, "My body seems to be made of steel now; bullets just bruise me. I can also extend blades from any part of my body."

"What's the fruit called?" asked Axel.

"I don't know," replied Mark, "But I'll probably find out when the Marines come looking for their stolen property."

"Can your power do anything else?" asked Cross, "Could you make your fists into hammers?"

"No," said Mark, "I can only do blades for some reason. So what do you guys do?"

"Me and Cross work the turrets," explained Axel, "Aside from that we're just bodyguards." Cross nodded, though he appeared to be biting back the urge to correct Axel's grammar.

Already knowing that Kate was the crew's mechanic, Mark moved on. "Alright guys," he announced, "I have no idea how crime works, so I want you to pick our first target." Kate smiled, "I have an idea." The crew of four spent the next few hours planning their attack.

Before they went to sleep, Cross asked, "Captain, what are we going to call our new crew?" "The Black Sheep Pirates," said Mark. Axel groaned in disappointment, "Why Sheep? We should be the Grand Master Planet-Eater Pirates!" As a former military officer, Mark was not used to being questioned by subordinates. However, he replied, "I'm the black sheep of a military family."

"I like it," said Kate. "What about you, Cross?"

"Same here," he replied, "I like the symbolism."

Axel scowled at him, "Fine, but don't tell me my idea wasn't badass."

"It sucked ass," replied Cross, and the two crewmen began shouting at each other. Mark sighed. There was a very good reason the Marines were not a democracy. If the crew could not follow orders when it counted, the Black Sheep would be captured like all of the pirates Mark had helped arrest as a marine. He decided to go to sleep. The following day he would know how much, or how little, discipline his crew had.


	3. First Mission

The next day saw Captain Mark Wagner back in his fighter, this time trying to capture a smuggler's light freighter that had been leaving the system. The freighter, a flying wing named the _Tangerine Express_, landed on Last Chance every other week. This was all that Kate Wheeler had been able to tell the crew. She believed that the freighter conducted business on the backwater planet, but couldn't say what transactions took place. What she did know was that the ship was in good condition, implying that the smugglers had money or goods for the Black Sheep to steal. "I wanted to hit the_ Express_ before," she had explained to Mark, "but I was worried that they had protection. Now that you're here we could actually get away with this job." Mark had agreed; he was confident that with his new powers he could take on whatever cartel the smugglers paid for protection.

Now he was trying to get the small freighter into his crosshairs. It wasn't easy; in addition to being smaller than the _Long Shot_, the _Tangerine Express_ was almost as maneuverable as Mark's fighter; the smugglers had obviously removed all of the ship's nonessential equipment. What they had not removed was the ball turret installed in the back of the ship. This kept Mark from simply tailing the freighter and destroying the two large engines mounted on its wings; he had to keep turning to avoid the turret fire, occasionally pumping bursts of laser fire into one of the engines, all while the freighter led him through barrel rolls and split-s maneuvers. However, Mark found he was actually enjoying the chase. He wasn't part of a formation and he didn't have a destroyer backing him up, just a crappy freighter with a tractor beam too weak to simply pull the smugglers in. For the first time in his life, the mission was in his hands and if he screwed up, the target would escape. With their fuel reserves dwindling, the Black Sheep pirates could not afford to let the _Tangerine Express_ get away.

A volley of laser fire from Mark's ship damaged one of the _Express'_ engines. As smoke poured out of the engine, the pirate looked at his fuel gauge and saw that he only had half a tank left. Mark needed to end the dogfight quickly. He held down the trigger, walking his fire over the body of the _Express_ and towards the turret. Three laser bolts connected with the turret and it burst into flame, but not before the tail gunner managed to squeeze of a final shot at Mark. The shot connected with Mark's fighter, lowering his shields to 25% and triggering the "shield warning" alarm inside his cockpit. Marine fighters were designed to avoid gunfire, not shrug it off. Mark wasted no time destroying the freighter's engines so the freighter could not escape. Mark radioed back to the rest of his crew, "Alright, she's down. Bring the _Long Shot_ close but don't board the _Express _without me." As the _Long Shot_ slowly approached the _Tangerine Express_, Mark returned to the hangar, his fuel tanks a quarter full.

"Umbilical extended, Captain!" reported Cross. The _Long Shot_ had docked with the _Tangerine Express_ and all of the Black Sheep Pirates were standing at an airlock on the starboard side of their ship, which led to the enclosed walkway. The far side of the umbilical was connected to an airlock in the aft of the smuggler's ship, to the left of the destroyed turret.

Mark gave his crew their orders, "You hold your position until I breach the airlock. Then follow me in." Armed with the same cutting torch his first mate had attempted to kill him with, Mark ran to the end of the umbilical and began cutting into the external door of the enemy ship's airlock. The door wasn't particularly thick, but it still took longer to cut through it than Mark would have liked. His crew waited, their assault rifles aimed at the airlock door. When the captain finished making a large circular cut in the door, he kicked open the hole, stepped through, and began cutting the internal door. As soon as he began cutting, however, the smugglers opened the door in an attempt to ambush the pirates.

Seeing Mark kneeling on the ground without a gun, the smugglers opened fire on him with their blaster rifles. The laser fire from the smuggler's rifles stung more than traditional bullets but were otherwise harmless. Mark counted three smugglers, in the compartment. Ships the size of the _Express_ generally held a crew of four, and Mark was sure he had killed one when he destroyed their turret. The men shooting at him from behind metal crates, in what could only be their ship's cargo hold, had no reinforcements, and Mark had three pirates backing him up. He dropped his torch and charged at the smuggler in the middle, while his crewmates sprayed bullets at the other men. With the exception of Kate Wheeler, they were less accurate than Mark would have liked, but still capable of defeating three frightened smugglers.

As he reached his target, Mark turned his hands into three-foot blades. With one swipe of his bladed arm he gave the smuggler a diagonal wound across his entire torso. As the man fell to the floor, Mark looked around and saw that the other two smugglers were also on the ground with bullet wounds in their chests. All three smugglers were alive, but in no condition to keep fighting. Meanwhile, the Black Sheep Pirates hadn't even been scratched. Mark retracted his blades and walked over to the man he had wounded, who appeared to be the smuggler captain, to ask where the ship's valuable cargo was located; contraband was unlikely to be stored in the same compartment as the rest of the cargo, where anyone could find it.

Mark had almost reached the man when he was attacked, seemingly out of nowhere, by an octopus fishman. Using five of his arms, the fishman quickly pinned Mark to the ground. In his sixth arm he held a combat knife. The blade was a familiar blue color: kairouseki! The fishman prepared to stab Mark in the jugular, bypassing his devil's fruit powers and killing him. Suddenly, Mark heard a gunshot, and the fishman dropped the sea stone knife. Axel had shot the fishman in the head. Mark stumbled to his feet, then bent down and picked up the kairouseki knife. "Holy shit," said Mark, breathing heavily, "That's the closest I've ever come to dying. Thanks for the save, Axel." Mark handed Axel the knife. Axel grinned, "All in a day's work captain."

Mark turned back to the man he had wounded, "Are you the captain?" he asked. The man shook his head, then took a hand off his wound and pointed to the dead fishman. "He was...the captain," said the smuggler, speaking with great difficulty from the pain his wound was causing. Mark's eyes narrowed. That son of a bitch had sent his men out in front of him and waited until they were down before he joined the fight. "Where's your medical supplies?" asked Mark. The smuggler pointed to a crate that, conveniently enough, was next to him. "You can keep them," said Mark to the three injured smugglers. Then he turned to his crew, "Take the crew and the meds to an escape pod. Then we can start stripping the ship."

Several hours later, the pirates had gutted the smuggling ship. The Black Sheep Pirates had located the safe and, upon cutting it open with Wagner's powers, had found 500,000 belli. There wasn't much cargo on the ship; the smugglers had probably sold that before the pirates found them, but the pirates did loot the three laser rifles, some energy packs for them, and some grenades. They had also salvaged the parts Kate needed to get her fighter running; she was currently in the hangar, repairing one of the engines. Mark and Cross were in the cockpit, flying the _Long Shot_ to Last Chance for some overdue repairs. Behind them, Axel was sketching in a notebook, though the other two men could not see what he was drawing. "So what's the plan after we get the ship repaired?" asked Cross. "Upgrade the ship and get some more crew members," replied Mark, "then we can start looking for the Pirate King's Treasure."

"WHAT?" asked Cross.

"_That_ Pirate King's Treasure?" asked Axel.

"The one the strongest pirates in known space have been looking for?" asked Cross.

"Let's do it!" replied Kate, who had run up to the cockpit after hearing Axel and Cross all the way from the hangar. Axel and Cross' jaws dropped. "What should we do instead, stay small-time for the rest of our lives?" continued Kate, "Thanks to the new boss we finally have chance to be badass and I'm taking it!"

"Thanks Kate," replied Mark "The rest of you have a few days to think it over. If you still don't like it you can quit, but the ship stays with me. Now strap yourselves in, we got one minute before atmospheric entry."


End file.
